Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not that they don't deserve it, it's that it's ironic.
it's not ironic if you really understand socialism.
Patreon seems like a very libertarian environment to me. I'm not sure how I could see it any differently.
Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
151–160 of 245 posts
Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
#152The quote from Nilay Patel's Vox article hits on one of my pet peeves. > Nilay Patel wrote in Vox: > "Taylor makes a nice little argument in favor of paying for music. 'Music is art,' she says, 'and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.' > This is an impressively-constructed syllogism. It is also deeply, deeply wrong.... On the internet, there’s no scarcit…
> How does such an obvious fallacy command such purchase among smart people? Swift is talking about "music" as an original work. Patel responds with an irrelevant point about digital copies of music. Obviously these are two different things! Yes, they are two different things. The problem is that artists (and record labels) want to get paid for the non-scarce thing: the copies, and not for the actually scarce thing:…
>The problem is that artists (and record labels) want to get paid for the non-scarce thing: the copies,
of course one could argue that the way to gauge the value of the artist's time and effort is by how many copies people want of what they produced.
I am not arguing this is a good way of estimating value, but there are lots of people who do make this argument, and it should be addressed.
note - I guess it should be time and ability, effort is generally another measure of time.
Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
#153Sort of tangential to the main point but - I find the new version of Fearless to be utterly lacking in "soul", "energy", "magic" or whatever you want to call it. The unquantifiable things that made the original so good are missing. Sure, the remakes are competent and perhaps even better technically, but after listening to both side by side (song by song, new then old) - to me there is no comparison. I went online loo…
I agree - they're definitely different from the Big Machine versions and no where near as lively or enjoyable (and I'm a Taylor fan). Seems like they were all recorded in one day one after the other just to pump them out.
She wears high heels
I wear sneakers
She's Cheer Captain, and I'm on the bleachers
Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
#154I've always found the idea of master recordings curious. Once a song becomes a hit, the band may perform it almost every day for the rest of their career, but what we listen to through our headphones or speakers is this one particular moment in time. Yes, there are live recordings and bootlegs, but by and large it's this one master recording, which may get dusted off every couple of decades for a remaster. Some maste…
The original masters led to the song sounding "the right way" when you hear it on the radio, instead of sounding different. Sometimes that difference sounds good too, like your favorite live album from some band. But other times that song doesn't sound right, the live version or alternative take just loses that magic. So the original has a lot of value if it hits. But I think you missed another aspect, the real value…
That can be a big problem for some Pop/Rock bands, in that their fans expect them to play their hits exactly the way they were recorded, down to the exact solos, for decades on end.
In contrast, Jazz vocalists don't get taken as seriously if they reproduce their recordings too exactly, and Jazz instrumentalists don't get taken seriously at all. In that genre, you're expected to bring something new to each performance.
Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The solution then would be to find a way to charge not for the copies, but for the time effort that the artist put into the production of the music. That's literally what charging for the copies does, though. People just want something for nothing. Claiming you want to "take the copy for free but pay separately for the time" when you aren't willing to pay for the copy so that there is some reimbursment for the time…
> That's literally what charging for the copies does, though. People just want something for nothing. I pay about 10€/mo for Spotify. A significant portion of my use of the service is devoted to artists that are dead. They can't put time and effort into producing music. They can't be reimbursed for the time and effort they've already put into it. I could bury the gold with them, but they wouldn't have any use for it…
> I pay about 10€/mo for Spotify.
Consider not; the majority of that money just goes to Spotify. If, every month, you paid 10€ to a random artist you liked (or split 10€ between all of them), the artists would receive probably more than two orders of magnitude more money. (If I remember correctly, anyway.) Of course, this assumes you can get the music elsewhere.
If Spotify's too convenient to give up, there are several Spotify download tools you can use to get the music onto a device that doesn't support Spotify (e.g. MP3 players). Lots of them seem to actually grab from YouTube, but perhaps if you use the Spotify API, you might be able to do it?
Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not that they don't deserve it, it's that it's ironic.
it's not ironic if you really understand socialism.
Many socialist-adjacent philosophies are anticapitalist. Hence, the irony.
Yes, yes, I know that it's not hypocrisy for anticapitalists to use money. I also know that not all socialists are anticapitalist. Still ironic.
Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
#157> Patel wrote about the end of scarcity, so technology that brings scarcity back seems like a panacea. Perhaps Swift’s 2014 vision was simply ahead of its time?
If our technology allows us to now distribute media in a post-scarcity environment, isn't that a good thing for culture? It's absolutely ridiculous that artificially reintroducing scarcity is seen as a good thing.
It also serves as yet another example of the reliance of profit on artificial scarcity, and the irrationality of the system- as well as the lengths to which people will go, just to desperately preserve an outdated model.
Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we might disagree on the extent to which the collectible sports card is valuable because of its unique physical materials, and the extent to which it’s valuable because of “human imagination.” I think the latter is responsible for the overwhelming share of the value of a sports card, and the former is only a historical coincidence that creating rare and difficult to counterfeit items was only practical by fab…
I have been looking for a useful formulation, or metaphor, for why the NFT premise feels so [preposterously] wrong to many including myself. Here is one idea, for how we intuit value: As a fraction, in which non-fungibility (~= "authenticity") is the denominator; nominal value (whatever that is, a function of context etc.) is the numerator. In the sports card example, a physical object with a provenance has intrinsic…
Don't discount humanity's desire for the abstract.
Love, truth, justice, honor, patriotism, status, etc.
So long as there is consensus that a thing exists (tangibly or intangibly) and is desirable, there will be demand.
Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
So some people believed in her and gave her a chance... backed her with their money ..invested in her and she re-pays them by attacking them and their investment. I used to be a fan of her and her persona but now comes off as spoiled and unappreciative!
It's a business arrangement, not an emotional relationship. They backed her because they thought they'd make a profit, and they did. They owe each other absolutely nothing else. Most people can't afford to stand up for themselves, I'm glad she's doing it.
> They owe each other absolutely nothing else.
So hang on, why should Taylor Swift be demanding more then?
Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How does such an obvious fallacy command such purchase among smart people? Swift is talking about "music" as an original work. Patel responds with an irrelevant point about digital copies of music. Obviously these are two different things! Yes, they are two different things. The problem is that artists (and record labels) want to get paid for the non-scarce thing: the copies, and not for the actually scarce thing:…
That's the reason why many youtubers on patreon switch to a monthly subscription rather than charging per video. It makes it clearer that we are supporting the creator's livelihood, not buying a token that they produced. Would anyone pay for a Taylor Swift subscription if that meant she could relax and produce music as she sees fit? Higher subscription tiers could include merchandising and concert tickets.
I think with an estimated net worth of $360,000,000 Taylor Swift could just relax and produce music as she sees fit, without any need for subscriptions.